Sailing Ether Tides

Sailing Ether Tides

Ch: 52 Come As You Are

Breakfast was quiet and super chilled out in the cozy Ward house. Most of the casual acquaintances and stray warriors had migrated to lodgings in the town, some of Gary’s tents and pavilions vanished in the process, but a few yards of cheap canvas, some bamboo poles, ropes and such was a small price to pay for the tranquil morning in the garden.

The two proud parents looked out over from the master suite balcony at their little portable domain. The boys were up early, crafting in Wilf’s workshop, that labor of love had taken the entire family’s arts, crafts and skills to create and was a subtle and completely non magical, understated wonder.

Mundane smoke and fumes billowed from the chimney, accompanied by the faint sound of hammers striking and the working of human crafts.

Wilf and Rio were working out in the garden, moving together in graceful, dancelike, controlled patterns, but so slowly as to be almost comical. The kids had quickly grasped the value of the seemingly pointless martial art from earth. Focusing one’s intent, while practicing careful self restraint delivered potent advantages to mindful and perceptive martial artists.

Gary had learned the art by accident, while sleeping in golden gate park one foggy summer.

A small crowd of old asian folks would gather to practice the art every dawn and dusk; watching them from his bower in the overgrown bushes, he’d picked up… something. Luna’s spear dance had awakened those old memories and brought the practice to mind. Combined with the spear dance she instructed the family in, the results were excellent.

They watched their two older sons for a while, cuddled close over one huge, shared mug of coffee, until Moonrise docked, discharging the girls and the familiars onto the garden in a happy, giggling scrum.

Annie rang the ship’s bell three times crisply as she disembarked; her captain’s hat at a jaunty, self satisfied angle that suggested a horse at peace with all the world.

“Nice…” Gary whispered, while his inner child kicked his heels in delight.

At the peal of the big bronze bell, the boys came boiling out of Wilf’s place, stampeding up the beach for the main house and breakfast.

“Let’s go mix it up in the sunshine this morning, cause this afternoon, I’m going to war.”

#

Breakfast, morning workouts and the gentle business of living unfolded in the little compound of crazies on the half wild lakeshore, just outside town. Lindsey and Flash slipped in among the girls and boys easily, they fit almost too perfectly into their herd.

“Aye, she be a true child of sweet Eponna now…” Shai murmured. “Methinks that lass will be our kin, come what may.”

“Pump the brakes, lover. I wanna just support them, no matter what.” Gary whispered in her ear.

“Fie, ‘tis that I just said, silly man.”

As fourth bell chimed, Gary stood, stretched and nodded to the kids, as they were heading out to go riding. They stampeded into the barn and vanished up the road, with Flash trotting behind and Sandi carrying Lindsey. Mighty Annie followed, with Luna and Khan dragged along whether they liked it or not. Even Becky and Kermal were in the pack, pedaling away.

Ivy and Tallum had gone visiting the two brothers that ran the forge. Marcus and Thom were their young cousins from Wheatford, come to the fringe to make their own way as craftsmen under count Liam’s keep.

Like Wilf’s, their smithy was a wonder of mundane engineering, with just a sprinkle of magic, where it would help the most. The tools and workstations ran on a water wheel system that was near silent, until the triphammers came online.

Shai had her bike out, propped against a walnut tree, as she kissed her husband at the garden gate.

“Are ye sure? I’ll be powerful furious, an ye do someatt mad whilst I’m away.”

“Go on, I just need a couple hours alone to work.” He murmured into her hair. “I’ll be fine.”

#

The workshop beneath the main house was a different kind of wonder, one that was unsafe for outsiders to work in under any circumstance, doubly so when he managed to tap into a fragment of his gifts.

Deep in the back corner of his shop, among the lumber racks and stacks of ingots there was a little round keg, set on a stand. He popped the bung out and grabbed a wine thief from the rack. Long and slender, the glass tube dipped in; once the tool was inserted into the barrel, he covered the open end with his thumb, capturing a sample of the contents.

He released a stream of clear, very splashy liquid into a shallow bowl of white ceramic, dug from his clay bank in Wheatford, thrown by his own hands and fired in a kiln powered by his own soul’s essence. Tiny incised lines surrounded the narrow lip of the bowl in an intricate and almost invisible decorative border of interwoven script.

The simple, barely adorned, unglazed bowl was a magical conduit into his soul, one created for rituals that few would consider, let alone attempt.

Three ounces of agua muerte, the cursed remnant liquor of certain vile necromantic experiments and unclean human sacrifice was dangerous to store, touch or smell; toxic and inimical to living matter and absolutely unclean. The stuff was beyond disgusting and deeply suspect, ethically.

He placed the bowl very gently into a wide circle of salt on his workbench and began adding things to it. First a single small gem of red garnet, barely bigger than a grain of coarse sand, but shining and glinting like a spark in the dim workshop.

Next a small clipping of his own shaggy brown hair and a fingernail trimming from each hand. An eyelash, a nose hair and a scraping of skin from the thick callus on the soles of his feet finished the initial preparations.

From his cabinet of kooky but not dangerous things he pulled out a small box containing a bundle of sheepskin rolled around a porous, unglazed clay idol, to protect the delicate carvings.

The figure of a tall, regal, nude woman stood with one hand upraised in benediction, the other held low, as if to offer aid to some unseen supplicant at her feet.

Carved of a single block of smooth, white chalk, the statue was a little over nine inches tall, but seemed grand, despite its size.

With delicate care, Gary draped a golden robe sewn in miniature, in the cut and colors of Healer’s cult around her. Then he spent entirely too long tying the bizarrely complex knot that held her sash.

Even with the handy instructions he’d found in Barry’s room and copied on the sly, it was tricky; especially at this scale. All those hours spent tying flies for his beloved, red haired fisher lass were really paying off.

When his dolly was dressed to his satisfaction he produced a tiny palette holding dabs of brightly colored powders in shallow depressions carved around the edge.

Next came a small glass apothecaries’ jar, sealed in wax. It contained a liquid in two parts, a reddish black, sludgy layer and a viscous, faintly yellow substance floating on top. He popped the top and the scent of old blood wafted out, coppery, sour and sharp.

He carefully decanted the yellow plasma from the jar of separated, congealed blood, into a small clay cup. The thick clotted mess left behind he poured into his bowl of oddments and foul smelling hooch. The dank, sloppy clotted blood sank to the bottom tinting the whole mess a sickly brown.

A smile crossed his face as a brush tipped with his own hair dipped into his own plasma and moistened a bit of finely powdered lapis. Carnelian, ochre and indigo followed after, along with more exotic pigments, like powdered monster pearl and the rosy inner shell of an extradimensional conch. Soon, lady Dana stood in miniature on his workbench, her face painted with care, if not so much artistic talent.

“She’s a little googly eyed.” He mumbled softly, as he placed the figurine into his shallow bowl of swill.

“Now we wait.”

“Good, I wanted to get some exercise in.” Kree buzzed happily. “Come on, let’s get busy!” She zipped around him in three tight spirals, corkscrewing through the air and bringing a smile to his face.

“All right love… but this time I’m gonna win!” He peeled off his shirt and kicked his slippers away, before grabbing a long, slim, bright steel rapier of simple, elegant design from a weapon rack near the forge. The swept hilt embraced his hand like a good friend’s grip in a fond reunion; firm, confident and unwilling to release, nor be released.

Kree, for her part, flew fast and far, deep into the shadows of the dark, confusing and weirdly ambiguous room. A moment later, a tall, slender, shadow woman with a terrifyingly narrow waist stepped into the open space in the center of the workshop. She saluted him with her blade of shadowstuff, faint shreds and particles drifting behind in her wake, as she crisply took a duelists’ stance.

She balanced lightly on the balls of her feet, blade extended three quarters of her full reach and her knees flexed.

Her point addressed a spot three inches above her opponent’s eyes, slowly drifting in a mildly distracting pattern.

“Try me, monkey boy!” She called, as her blade spun and flashed darkly, lashing out for his throat.

#

Francis Pangborne stalked the perimeter of the madman’s house for days, watching, waiting for his chance. When the whole group rode out, leaving the witch, Gary Ward alone, he took the opportunity to make his move.

His beloved wife, duchess Emma would never understand, but he had to settle this matter, even if by dishonorable means.

Fortunately Violet, his familiar mount, was safe back home in the ducal stables, enjoying a ‘staycation’ whatever that was… His horse was an odd character, if very sweet.

He slipped through the hedges and crept in through the family door, before making his way down into the witch’s awful lair. Slinking down the dim, shadowed stairs, Pangbourne turned the final landing… and found himself face to face with the witch himself, stripped to the waist and sweaty from some labor best not contemplated by the sane and wholesome.

“Skulking and sneaking are my tricks, sir Frank.” He muttered crossly. “I have delicate workings in hand so come back another time please, and please refrain from entering the workshop unescorted. It can be… dangerous.”

“I have come to settle a matter of honor between us, witch.” He snapped. “This has been too long waiting, so now I’ve come to settle accounts for what you’ve done.”

“Yeah, well I’m not open for business and I don’t recall any debts between us, Francis.” He barked right back. “You’re fucking around with something important, get lost.” Gary turned and walked back into his shadow haunted lair, only to find the lord following him.

The strain of denying the house charms was showing on his face, yet he persisted, even under the direct gaze of the mad fool that ruled the clan of witches and monster hunters.

It felt as if a cold, bitter wind was blowing against his very soul, urging him to depart for warmer climes. Even in far off Port Sunderland, Violet felt the disturbance and whickered in his ears, across the miles.

“This must be done. And done now.” Frank muttered, to himself, his horse and the witch lurking over by the workbench.

“I know you had something to do with the disappearance of Order and War, boy.” He snarled. “The others think I’m mad, that a pissant like you couldn’t possibly…”

“Fuck off Francis, I’m too busy to play games or listen to foolish tales.” The witch barked back, rage flaring in his eyes. “If you spoil my spell… Well, I’ll just have to start over fresh, but I won’t be happy about it.”

“I’ve been watching, count Liam’s rise, from warsworn orphan to his current, lofty position; your work. Belen’s rise and the end of the indenture sale system…” He gasped. “Your fingers were those pies as well. I also happen to know that count Liam’s Contract with War was the first to end… by weeks.”

“You’re talking crazy; trust me, I know crazy.” Gary grumbled as the man kept stalking him around the shop making weird claims.

“Moreover, I know you were violently taken off the street, by sworn knights of Order and War, snatched up and carried away…” He announced with triumph.

“Your escort was found, slain, among signs of terrible butchery and some dark ritual, out by the waste pits of Wheatford on the night of the Madman’s moon…” His smile widened and became cunning and cruel.

“After which you were declared to have been murdered in an illegal occult ritual; by participants who, records indicate, perished in the event and remain unidentified…” Pangbourne smiled again, looking half crazed.

“A dead man, back after fifteen years… and seeming none the worse for wear…” He sneered. “Such an unnatural thing is impossible… just as impossible as the things I saw in that benighted, demon haunted city on the hill, all those years ago… Things you were orchestrating, somehow, even then…” He muttered darkly, as the boy stood there not, denying anything.

“You slew that demon, slew it out of hand, while I watched… I’ve heard the screams of mortal endings before, boy; I know the sound well. You slew that which even the gods cannot destroy.” He whispered harshly. “Scanty records and some persistent rumors suggest you have done this several times, before and since.”

“That’s stupid; seriously, are you even listening to yourself? Only a madman would say things like that out loud.” Gary muttered nervously.

“What kind of demon slaying, dreadful, immortal’s bane makes tambourines and flutes for the kiddos?”

“Yes, your children, just as uncanny and impossible… it’s still whispered in certain quarters your little ones were responsible for the death of that oddsman… When they were still barely old enough to dress themselves.” Frank murmured eagerly, when the witch’s face hardened. “Then, suddenly there were four more, each identical to you, save in age..”

“Don’t fuck with my kids, Frank. My kids love Emma and we all remember Violet very fondly, but I’ll end you to protect my family.” The witch said coldly, showing his true face at last. “Even if I hang for it… maybe especially if I hang. I’m tired… and I’m sick of this conversation. Get out of my house, Frank.”

The uncanny wind intensified, scouring the stubborn lord’s skin and drying his eyes, without actually existing at all. The man remained, glaring at the shadows all around as if demanding an answer from them.

“Shit! That used to work.” The witch grumbled sourly.

“I can’t do this right now; I have something cooking and I don’t know exactly when it’ll be done. This is a delicate and careful working, so get the fuck out.”

“Not till we settle this now, witch.” Frank sneered. “I had Contract with War and Order, both sworn and consecrated before the gods…” The man gasped, his eyes rolling in his head, and sweat springing from his brow.

“I think you broke them… my Contracts, and maybe my gods too… I think you had a hand in the disappearance of the three lost gods and the proliferation of these new cults!”

“Frankie, baby… I’m a hedgewitch and dirt grubbing peasant, how could I do anything to a god, one of the greatest of them all, never mind the whole big three?” He made his voice sound soothing and calm, but there was something dark behind his eyes.

“Order, War and Craft are immortal and can’t simply be excised from the universe… universes? Multiverse? Whatever, they must still exist, even if they aren’t here… anymore.”

“Witchcraft… Lies, your uncanny arts… There’s even a rumor that you summoned an aspect or fragment of War himself, before the eyes of the clerical council of judgment!” He shouted in triumph. “Deny it, deny any part of it if you can!”

“Ok, Frank. Time’s up. You need to go.” The fool repeated, pointing to the stairs.

“No, I have come this far and I won’t leave until I know…” He snapped furiously at the witch.

“Know what? The clerics won’t talk, even the new god of Justice won’t say what happened! What makes you think I can tell you?” He demanded, just as angrily.

“My eyes and ears, witch! They tell me you are no normal human, something else and uncanny, perhaps… Even my familiar sees the darkness in you, she calls you ‘Shadowmounted’ or ‘Rider in Darkness’ constantly… Because she talks about you, constantly!”

“Really?” He asked, a small and very real smile of fondness appearing on his face. “She’s so sweet… did she get that sample of toasted grains?”

“Yes, damn you! Now my cook must roast my bloody horse’s breakfast every night; or I won’t hear the end of it.” Pnagbourne grumbled. “It does taste much better, but it’s the principle of the thing!”

The mood broke a little, during their equine reminiscence sesh, so Gary made a move. “Come on Frank, wait upstairs for a while I’ll talk this out with you late-...”

A subtle sense of a presence arrived in the shadow haunted workshop, making the place seem brighter, and somehow, more unnerving.

“Mortal filth! You dare call me to your den of unclean witchery!” Divine lady Dana, Balm in Man’s Suffering shrieked at him from the workbench.

Standing nine inches tall and with her face made up like a Port Fallon dancing girl, Dana shone in all her radiant, divine glory. She bellowed and wailed, from her immobile idol, standing in a bowl of nameless slop.

“Aww, fuck!” Gary moaned.

#

“Amy…” Lindsey called out, when the group suddenly halted for little apparent cause, in a dry field of cut hay stubble. “Flash says there’s trouble at home… er, at your home, I should say.”

“Annie and Shiro both said the same thing… Violet is freaking out and yelling at Eponna about something…” Amy replied, looking concerned. “We’re heading back, fast. Barry, if Lindsey and Sandi can’t keep up, stay with her.” Amy ordered crisply. “Sorry Lin, we’re gonna fly.”

There was zero chance jolly, plump Sandi, the aged but still hale pony mare was keeping up with the Wards and Annie. She and Barry watched them recede in the distance, while Flash grumped and complained about ‘tottering along’.

“What’s going on, Barry, do you know?” She asked, once her horse’s complaints were muted to a manageable level. He had complaints about that, too.

“My dad declared blood feud on the goddess of Healing the day before yesterday.” He answered calmly. “He made his demand formally at the temple, as prescribed in the law and she missed the deadline to answer, now he’s summoning her, back at home.”

“Summoning her?” She asked, sounding surprisingly calm even in her own ears.

“Uh, huh. With witchcraft… It’s a whole thing, don’t ask.” He answered just as calmly. “It’s pretty gross.”

“That sounds… insane.” She mumbled softly.

“Yup. Bonkers, nutty as squirrel poop, moon touched, mooncalf, we’ve heard them all.” He shrugged ambivalently. “Results are results.”

#

“She can’t see you; you aren't part of the ritual. She can’t see or hear me unless I address her idol directly, ‘cause none of her cultists or clerics are here. She also can’t escape, because she owes me a debt… a blood debt.” The witch explained to the shaken and pale knight.

“She struck my son, now she owes me my due… and she won’t leave this place ‘til I’ get it.”

“You can’t…” He mumbled softly, as she sank into a chair. “This is so much worse than I expected…”

“I can, and it really is so very much worse than you suspect… even now.” Ward said, as he stepped out of the shadows to confront both men.

“This is getting ridiculous… and you are scaring the holy shit out of the rest of the pantheon, Gary.” He turned ever so slowly to face the shell shocked, sagging knight, slumped in a wing chair.

“Who might this poor mortal be?”

“Sir Frank Pangbourne, an unwelcome visitor who intruded on my personal dealings with lady Dana… who is still awaiting my attention.” Gary replied angrily. “And who I really, really want to get back to.”

“Francis, this is my brother, Ward. He’s the god of Death and Vengeance.” The fool said firmly, indicating the exact duplicate of himself standing there, dressed in pink silk floral pajamas...

“Hey! I’m Golden Figs too!” The man in colorful loungewear exclaimed in tones of hurt feelings and mad mirth. “Don’t just give him the spooky stuff and leave me hanging here!”

“Whatever, bro. Your god buddies decided to take a nice long hackey at my sacky for revenge, I get it… I’ll take my lumps and deal with it.” He glared at the idol and the handsome image of his own much less remarkable face as she snarled.

“My kids are off limits.”

“Calm down, brother… we’re on the same side… don’t do anything… you know.” Ward murmured softly to the enraged lunatic.

“That Healer bitch will answer me, or I’ll figure out how to…” One of the two mad witches said, from one of their nearly identical faces, yet they were so very different in every way.

“No, you won’t.” Ward sighed. “You’re angry, hurt, in pain and on the ragged edge… But you won’t take the Healer away from the world… I know you, brother.” He sighed gustily, sounding for all the world like an autumn wind in the leaves of a wide spreading fig tree.

“She brushes up against our damage, our memories of doctors, lawyers, judges and priests from home…”

A darkly terrible glint appeared in the silk clad man’s eyes, a simmering anger, kept warm and held close to an unforgiving breast.

“I get it, baby… You know I do. But we never could do murder and Dana is unable to hurt any living thing, even you, who she really, really wants to hurt.” He smiled wanly, his unholy rage suppressed.

“She’s the goddess of Healing, even her vicious and unprovoked attacks are a soothing balm and ease old pains. You see a difference in the boys already, don’t you?”

#

Frank sat speechless as the men debated and discussed utter madness, in a realm of creeping shadows, while the tiny goddess Dana herself hissed and spat in fury, nearby.

“Have I truly lost my mind? Since Order and War vanished from my soul… I’ve been dreaming…” Frank muttered softly.

“No Frank… you aren’t mad, or dreaming. Two gods have touched your soul, they await your acceptance to finally ease your discomfort.” The man in pink whispered.

“Ipet has wriggled deeply into your soul, but you refuse to accept, stubbornly adhering to Order’s empty rituals…” He shook his head in dismay at the knight. “Order has perished, I can say no more about that; but Ipet has taken up his mantle and wears it well. Embrace the goddess Justice and let hoary, dusty, rigid, old Order fade from your heart.” He grinned and shook his head at the befuddled man.

“War never fit you at all, as with so many of you nobles. You hammered a square peg into your poor, once round, Joy hole.”

He sighed again, when the nobleman started sputtering and fuming.

“Your crowd gets so butthurt about your Contracts and the rules and traditions of days gone by… Even after all you’ve seen and heard… the beings you’ve met face to face, you still can’t let go of those old prejudices…”

“My Contracts were sealed before the gods, what right have any to break them?!” He demanded and kinda also pleaded, just a little. Something about this man was other vast…

“Poor Joy should be the first of us, instead she has so few Contracts…” Ward muttered crossly, as if he hadn’t heard the man’s words.

“Joy lost so many that should have been hers and it made her weep, behind her mask. You could have been among her clergy, were your Contracts not already largely set and unlikely to be loosed.”

“Me? A cleric of Joy?” He whispered, sounding as if he were a man long lost in the darkness and someone just walked up and handed him a lit torch.

“She can’t fit in there anymore, Franky… but her sister Water… She is able to take nearly any shape and has flooded in; your prejudice against the Spirits is silly and stupid, but strong despite… or perhaps because it’s so stupid and self destructive.”

“I’m not bigoted… I have a Contract with the god of Beasts and a familiar!” He sputtered.

“Yes, you also keep that fact held close, as your darkest deepest secret, buried in your heart. Just as you pretend sweet Violet is simply a horse, when you think yourself observed.” The mad fool straightened his loungewear and sucked his intensely white and oddly sharp teeth at the lord.

“Shameful, sirrah! A shameful way to treat a lady of such wit, charm and elegance. Now sit still and be quiet, mortal man; while my brother and I have an augment with an honest to gods… goddess.”

The pajama creature turned his baleful stare on the mad witch, who had been smiling entirely too smugly for Frank’s comfort, during his ordeal with ‘Ward, god of Death’.

“You, Gary…” Ward said tiredly, when he turned on the fool beside him. “She loves all mankind, without reservation or preference, save you. She hates you, like really, really hates your guts and everything you carry them around inside.” He smiled weakly at the man and shook his head.

“But otherwise, she really is the most loving and giving of all the gods and goddesses; except maybe Thirp... She’s so sweet…”

“Yeah, well she could just leave me and mine alone… I haven’t fussed or screwed around with their stupid curses… Even when I’m puking my guts out; not in all these years.” He snarled at the man and at the statue, who was still yelling and cursing at him in the corner.

“Fucking trash, most of them that’s almost the worst part… amateurish and feeble curses, wrought carelessly. Well, most of them anyway, there’s a couple real thorns in that tangled vine, but I could have clipped them away. It would have been so simple, so easy to become something…” He stopped himself, leaving whatever dark thoughts that crawled through his mind unspoken.

“I followed the rules; now she wants more. Don’t try me, brother. I’m not there yet, but I can see it happening. She can keep fucking me over forever, screw her; but my kids are off limits, they matter. No more pushing them around, or I start working on another Tom Jones classic.”

He fixed his ‘brother’ with a wild eyed stare of utter madness and smiled. “I’m the crazy one, remember, Death? Harmless and crazy Gary the Hanged Man, left to twist in the wind. Don’t forget, though:”

Every single one of us has the devil inside.

He whispered that strange phrase to both the man in pink and the now silent idol lingering on the workbench… Just sitting on the periphery and overhearing those words as they drifted and slithered through the shadows around the chamber, making them seem to writhe and squirm was more than enough.

#

Amy and her swarm of Ragamuffins and Wards cranked up to the inn, just in time to see sir Frank, hoofing it towards town and walking like he needed to either find a privy, or change his shorts. “He didn’t even say hi…” Amy complained softly.

“Huh, he’s a weird dude.” Wilf muttered at the fleeing lord’s back.

#